Davan, Dhavan, the keyboard kid and I

I am going to tell you about an incident that happened when I was a primary school kid in Sudarshan Vidya Mandir. The year was 1990. My parents had just then moved to Bangalore from Baroda. I was enrolled "mid-way" in November into the 3rd standard. I could neither read nor write Kannada, which was the third language in the school's curriculum. I was a fairly unknown character in the school back then and my only claim to fame was ace-ing the mid-term Kannada exam after having spent just about a month learning the language. The guys knew me as "Vinay" and the girls knew me as "some random Baroda kid".

The school fixed a date for the Annual Day celebrations and the teachers got busy selecting kids for various cultural programmes. Every class had to present one programme. It was decided that the 3rd standard kids would present a play about the Ramayana. The play was supposed to be a whirlwind tour of the epic, beginning with Rama's fourteen-year exile to the forests and culminating with his appointment to the throne of Ayodhya. The play had a crew comprising of 30 students and 4 teachers with a separate team just for the musicals ! Costumes had been hired from Prabath Kalavidaru and apparently the principal had evinced keen interest in the play as well. Absolutely serious stuff I tell you. You were considered cool if you were a part of the play....in whatever manner possible.

The play had 7 major roles - Rama, Lakshmana, Sita, Bharatha, Ravana, Hanuman and Dasharatha. The supporting roles included Lava, Kusha, Shatrughna, Vishwamitra, Sugreeva and Vali. And finally there were a bunch of boring "extra" roles like a soldier in Rama's army who would make a 2 second appearance on the stage only to have Ravana's sword pierce through his body. His only dialogue was to scream in pain "AAAAAAHHHHHH" when Ravana's sword made it's way through him. He would then be carried off the stage by a bunch of other "extra" guys. Obviously the kids who were most popular with the teachers got the major roles (you know how things work in primary school, don't you). The least popular ones would end up with the fringe roles. Now, ace-ing a Kannada exam once doesn't make you intensely popular and so, I ended up playing that soldier who would get shred to pieces by Ravana. I spent a whole night in bed figuring forty one different ways of screaming "AAAAAAHHHHH" and I must say that I had it in me to make the scene highly emotional.

Three days to go for the mega event and we promptly assembled in the GMT hall for after-hours practice. We quickly reached the scene where I had to make my entry. I executed my role with such passion that the teacher who was directing the play shouted "Very Good. Next !". I was supposed to be followed by Hanuman who would engage Ravana in an intense gadha battle. The keyboard guy in the backstage got ready to play the ting sound every time the gadhas would meet. Ravana stood on stage waiting for Hanuman, but the kid who was supposed to play Hanuman was nowhere to be seen. The teacher shouted "Where is Hanuman ??" ... no sign of Hanuman .... "Where the hell is Hanuman??"....still no sign. Suddenly there was this feeble voice from back stage "Maam, Danesh has typhoid and he will not be participating in our play". Duh! OK, so we have a problem now. Hanuman is missing and we all know that you can't have a play about Ramayana with no Hanuman in it. The teacher, visibly disturbed, looked around to see if any of the other kids would fit into Hanuman's role. Just around the same time, I was being carried off stage by Davan and Dhavan (yeah, twins). The teacher shouted "Put Vinay down"....what ?? ... that was not in the script. I was supposed to be carried off the stage. So I tried getting up to complain about this sudden change in the script that had happened without my knowledge. Just then, the teacher walked up to me and said "OK Vinay, you are going to play Hanuman"...wait a minute, I spent a whole night figuring out forty one ways of screaming in pain and now, all that was going down the drain ? Just because Danesh woke up one day and had a hot plate instead of a forehead ? More importantly, we had just three days left !! For somebody who was trying to enhance his popularity with the best "AAAAAHHHH" people had ever heard, I was being set up for failure. I didn't know the dialogues and Hanuman had quite a lot of things to say. I was not even sure whether the costumes would fit me. This was just not fair. But then, in primary school, you really can't flex your muscles a lot and so I had to accept the role, quite reluctantly if I may add. The soldier's role was trashed and with that Davan and Dhavan lost their roles too. They had to sit and watch us perform. Sad exit for the twins. They were sacked and I seemed to have got a promotion.

The day finally arrived. I was dressed in the weirdest costume I had ever worn for a play. I had a huge tail tied to my waist. I had a fairly ornamental headgear as well. Holding a mace in my hand, I was all set to beat the hell out of Ravana. Our play started and I must admit that we were all doing a great job. The audience was totally mesmerized by our performance. Everyone watched, intently. I walked out and gave Ravana a couple of extra punches than what we had earlier planned. After all, he had stolen my pencil a couple of days ago !! The audience couldn't stop applauding the two of us while we were putting up a wonderful demonstration of "mace fight". The tings from the backstage happened at the same time the maces met...what synchrony... even the keyboard kid was doing a fantastic job. Applause applause everywhere. The mace fighting scene with Ravana got over and the play soon rolled over to the final scene where Rama is sitting on the throne with Sita alongside....a couple of extras start a dance sequence celebrating Rama's victory over Ravana .... the backstage choir is singing a song "Jaya jaya Rama, jaya jaya Sita....".....somewhere in that song when a brief mention is made of Hanuman, I was supposed to leap across the dais, shout "Bolo Shri Ramchandra ki....Jai" and finally genuflect in front of Rama. As soon as the song started praising Hanuman, I took off. I was probably air borne for three to four seconds. Just when I was about touch down, one of the guys from the dance troupe meandered into my glide path... Oh gee, we have a problem. Where's air traffic control ?? There's a kid on the run way .... I couldn't quite manage to avoid this obstruction which had emerged from nowhere and with no prior warning. Quite predictably, I crashed into this kid. My mace hit him on his head and he fell down. Time froze for a couple of seconds. Everybody on the stage was dumbstruck. The teacher, who all along kept cheering us from the side-wings, was now searching for a place to hide. The choir stopped singing. The audience froze. Rama seemed clueless for the first time in his life. This couldn't be happening now, that too towards the end of the play. I had ruined what seemed like a stellar performance by a bunch of awesome 8 year old kids. Nobody knew what to do. I looked around and spotted Davan and Dhavan sitting with their parents. I waved at them frantically to tell them we had a casualty on the stage. Luckily these guys were in a traditional costume that made them presentable on stage. They promptly walked on to the stage, lifted the kid who had fallen down and carried him off the stage...just like they were supposed to carry me off when I was the soldier. Now that the debris had been cleared, a gleeful Hanuman started jumping around with his mace shouting "Bolo Ramchandra Ki" "Bolo Ramchandra Ki"... the keyboard kid played a couple of ting tings to wake up the choir which seemed to have gone into a trance and the dance continued from where it had been paused. The air went alive with cheers of "JAI JAI" from the audience and Rama was back to smiling again.

Davan, Dhavan , the keyboard kid and I shot to fame. The guys knew me as "Vinay" and the girls came to know me as "Vinay" too.